The cancellation came after they realized what everyone already knew – that the companies were required to do what they did because of accounting rules. Waxman and others had reacted with outrage and accused the companies of doing it – in essence, to make health care reform look bad.

Right. Companies normally take $1 billion dollar hits against their profits just to “make health care look bad”. And, of course, it must have been a conspiracy, since so many did it, right Mr. Waxman?

House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement which gets to the crux of Waxman’s now cancelled plan:

“Chairman Waxman thought he could intimidate businesses into keeping quiet about this new job-killing health care law, but when they called his bluff by continuing to speak out, he chose to pull the plug.”

Sounds about right. Meanwhile another poll shows the specific health care legislation recently passed and signed into law, remains deeply unpopular to a majority of Americans:

Fifty-eight percent of Americans (96 percent of Republicans, 10 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of Independents) support repealing the health care reform legislation that was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March, according to a new national survey conducted April 6 – 10 by researchers from Indiana University’s Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research (CHPPR).

Americans 18 to 34 years of age were most supportive of repealing the legislation with more than 70 percent supporting its repeal.

“This is somewhat surprising given that some of the most vocal opposition to reform in the past came from older Americans while younger individuals seemed less opposed,” said Aaron Carroll, M.D., director of CHPPR.

Despite claims that this sort of opposition would quickly and quietly fade away after passage, it doesn’t appear that’s the case. The last demographic quoted in the poll is interesting, because it means that younger people are aware of the impact the legislation will have on them (mandate) and the vast majority don’t support it at all. These sorts of numbers, and the fact that few of the so-called “benefits” this bill provides don’t start till 2014, make repeal more “doable” than if the benefits had already begun to take hold – a cost of gaming the CBO numbers in an effort to claim this monstrosity decreases the deficit.

Opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care law jumped after he signed it — a clear indication his victory could become a liability for Democrats in this fall’s elections.

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds Americans oppose the health care remake 50 percent to 39 percent. Before a divided Congress finally passed the bill and Obama signed it at a jubilant White House ceremony last month, public opinion was about evenly split. Another 10 percent of Americans say they are neutral.

Disapproval for Obama’s handling of health care also increased from 46 percent in early March before he signed the bill, to 52 percent currently — a level not seen since last summer’s angry town hall meetings.

{chuckle} I’m so dreadfully sorry that you dense righties just don’t understand a dedicated public servant such as Waxman. He, unlike you, understands post-modern politics. So he had a multiple truth that the executives of those mean corporations were behaving badly, and he felt a heart-rending desire to DO SOMETHING about such a horrible situation. So he reacted the only way he could, by demanding that they come to Washington and bow down before wise leftists to explain their unholy desire to make Obamacare look bad. {eyes rolling}

How would Waxman know they were doing it because they were legally required to? Sainted Waxman has never been contaminated by the grime of running a business. Just because he has been the person putting the legal code in place for decades doesn’t mean he actually has to know it. He just has to have good intentions; his staff does the rest.

I know, because I worked in DC, and I’m telling you that it works that way, and you thick righties should never, ever dispute me on anything about the way Washington works. Because of my experience plus my advanced degrees at places that did not either give me a degree to get rid of me, plus my book on foreign relations that is not either from a vanity press that suckers social science academics. LOL.

So you mean righties just lay off of Waxman and Barney Frank and holy, well-intentioned people like that. Why, those backwoods tea partiers insulted Frank over his sexuality! I mean, one of them did, and by extension that means they were all thinking it. I decree it. Just like you ex-military basket cases that post here, the tea partiers are sterile and inbred and Nazi-like.

But I never insult people. Not like the commenters here, who insult me all the time. It just prove I’m right, you know, every time you insult me. It proves that I’m smart and I have wonderful intuition and intentions and that my arguments are perfect and hit you right between the eyes, every time. It does! Stop laughing! {eyes rolling}

The Soviet “railroad of state” is chugging along but eventually it gets stuck.
Comrade Lenin says
… throw out the engineers and bring in the proletariat.

Eventually the “railroad of state” gets moving again, but yet again it eventually gets stuck. Comrade Khrushchev says
… get rid of the proletariat, they don’t know what they are doing .. bring back the engineers

Again, the “railroad of state” gets moving again, but yet again it eventually gets stuck. This time Comrade Brezhnev says
… pull down the shades and pretend we are moving

I can understand Waxman’s initial reaction, the feeling that perhaps these companies were rubbing their losses in Congress’ face as a form of protest. But it’s embarrassing that he’d go through the trouble of convening a hearing before investigating the issue, at which point he’d understand that this was something that those companies are required to do. The whole health care reform fiasco has made government seem more out-of-touch than ever, and that’s saying something. It’s no surprise that any ‘bump’ in the polls after the bill was passed was both small and very short-lived, and that public opinion continues to trend downward.

I’m reminded of that commercial on TV where the dish network guy is polling customers for opinions, and the cable TV employee wonders aloud why they’re bothering to even talk to the customers. “Seems dumb,” he opines with a shrug, as the dish network rep rolls his eyes.

Waxman likes to use scheduling a hearing as a signal that he’s Doing Something. He cancelled all but one of the CPSIA hearings he called, and the one he actually went through with had only one person testifying: the (Democrat) head of CPSC, who had been on the job just long enough to put pictures of her family on her desk and likely hadn’t had enough time to catch herself up on everything that was happening with CPSIA.

Prediction: Republicans will NOT repeal, or even file a bill to repeal, ObamaCare. Expect them to tinker around the edges of this monstrosity, leaving the esssential features intact. They don’t call it the “Stupid Party” for nothing, you know.

I agree, but I have to say that you’re late to the party. Many people have predicted that the GOP won’t try to repeal ObamaCare. They may object to the cost, but they don’t object to the principle: they merely want to be in charge of it.

Fast train to Hell, Slow train to Hell. In the end, you see, it doesn’t really matter which you choose. So we need to smack the engineers on the slow train around and get off on a siding. Fast train? Not gonna happen, the engineers have wedged the throttle at full and have headed back to the dining car for celebratory victory champagne (billed to the passengers, of course).